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[First Latin Edition of Munster's 'Cosmographia']

MUNSTER, Sebastian.Cosmographiae universalis Lib. VI in quibis, iuxta certioris fidei scriptorum..Basle, Henri Petri, 1550, Latin text edition. Folio, contemporary full vellum binding, rebacked. Woodcut title, portrait, 14 double-page maps, including two world maps and one map of America, 37 town views, 3 folding panormas, and 3 other double-page woodcuts. Plethora of woodcut illustrations throughout text.
A beautiful and complete example of what was undoubtedly the most popular cosmographical text of the mid sixteenth century. The famous map of The Americas (Burden 12) is here in state 5, and the modern world map in its second block,with the monograms DK, i.e. David Kendall. Sebastian Munster was raised as a Franciscan monk, converted to Lutheranism, taught Hebrew at Heidelberg and Basle, and was proficient in Greek and some Asian tongues. This work was an outgrowth of Munster edition of Ptolemy's Geography, whose Latin translation was based on that by Willibald Pirkheimer, though in a prelude to the present work's originality, he did not merely copy that rendering. He “carefully collated it with previous editions, added numerous notes of his own, and produced new maps to supplement the Ptolemaic maps(Karrow). SHIRLEY: Maps in the Atlases in the British Library, T.Mun-1c.
[Ref: 8594]